{"id":1084,"featured":1,"modified":"2026-04-04 22:02:25","latitude":41.49722525983143128769370377995073795318603515625,"longitude":-81.69249057769775390625,"title":"Landmark Office Towers","subtitle":"The Professional and Corporate Heart of the Terminal Group","fullsize":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/cf17bb9783a0e01e8bcbc10cdc20b577.jpg","address":"101 W Prospect Ave, Cleveland, OH","zoom":17,"creator":["J. Mark Souther"],"description":"The three adjoining buildings that comprise Landmark Office Towers were originally conceived as part of Oris P. and Mantis J. Van Sweringen’s Cleveland Union Terminal complex, the “city within a city” the brothers launched in the 1920s. Designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White of Chicago and built between 1929 and 1930, the buildings occupied an entire city block bounded by Prospect Avenue, Huron Road, Ontario Street, and West 2nd Street, all of which were built as viaducts above the railroad tracks entering the Union Terminal.
In keeping with the idea of a city within a city, each building focused on a different sector: the Medical Arts Building was built for physicians’ and dentists’ offices; the Builders Exchange Building was devoted to businesses associated with the building trades; and the Midland Bank Building was dedicated to banking institutions and other business firms. The buildings included passageways connecting them with each other and with other components of the Terminal complex. A skybridge over Prospect, planned to link the Medical Arts Building with Higbee’s department store, was never added.
The three buildings were all built with structural steel frames clad with gray limestone on the lower four floors, cream face brick above, and terra-cotta trim near the tops. Detailed Art Deco motifs graced each facade, and the complex featured setbacks and light wells to break their bulk and provide ventilation. Inside, they featured travertine marble floors, fluted pilasters, plaster ceilings with ornamental friezes, and bronze elevator doors. The three-story lobby of the Midland Bank Building featured a wood-burning fireplace, a mezzanine, and pillars and panels carved from the trunks of seven giant oak trees. The trees were selected from an English estate and transported by steamship from Liverpool. The Builders Exchange Building included Guildhall, a tenth-floor restaurant inspired by a 15th-century London namesake, and a two-story demonstration house called the Home in the Sky on its two top levels.
The introduction of such an expansive block of choice office space soon after the onset of the Great Depression had a profound impact on downtown, precipitating a consolidation of business and professional activity around the Terminal and leaving older office buildings with hard-to-fill vacancies. Four major corporate headquarters relocated to the complex between 1930 and 1935. Two were local: Sherwin-Williams moved its offices from its Canal Road property into portions of the Midland Building and Builders Exchange Building, while Standard Oil Co. of Ohio (Sohio) left the East Ohio Gas Building on East 6th for the Midland Building. The Midland Building also attracted the Erie Railroad headquarters away from New York City in 1931 and Republic Steel from Youngstown in 1935. The arrival of the latter led the Medical Arts Building to be renamed the Republic Building.
Yet the Depression also forced the complex to grapple with challenges. In 1932, Midland Bank went bankrupt and merged into Cleveland Trust, closing its offices in its namesake building. Three years later, the Van Sweringen Company went bankrupt. Thereafter, ownership of the towers complex was administered by the Prospect Terminals Building Co., a subsidiary of Cleveland Terminal Building Co. In 1940, the Cleveland Builders Exchange left for a new headquarters on Euclid Avenue, and Sherwin-Williams expanded to the floors that had housed the Exchange's Home in the Sky. At that time, the building was named the Guildhall Building.
In 1950, Cleveland Terminal Building Co. sold the entirety of the Union Terminal group except the rail station in 1950 to the 66 Trust of Philadelphia. That same year, the four main tenants of the towers complex — Republic Steel, Erie Railroad, Sohio, and Sherwin-Williams — formed RESS Realty (a portmanteau of their names) to coordinate leasing of office space in the three conjoined towers. For the 35 years that followed, the complex harbored a workforce of around 5,000 people.
In 1986, ten years after the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad (formerly Erie Railroad) closed its Cleveland headquarters following its merger into Philadelphia-based Conrail, Sohio completed its move from the Midland Building to its new 45-story headquarters on Public Square. Following the departures of these firms and Republic’s recent merger into LTV Steel, RESS Realty was administered by only LTV and Sherwin-Williams. In the year preceding Sohio’s exit, RESS Realty renovated and rebranded the LTV-Guildhall-Midland Building complex as Landmark Office Towers.
During the renovations, Sherwin-Williams bought the complex, bringing its ownership back to Cleveland. Changes included a central lobby for the elevator banks serving all three buildings, along with the revitalization of the Midland Building’s lobby, which Sohio had modernized into offices with dropped ceilings in 1970, as the Van Sweringen Arcade. The bank’s vault became Haymarket Restaurant, later Piperade, and then Hyde Park Chophouse until the space closed in 2011.
The renovation and promotion succeeded in turning around the towers at a critical time. After Sohio moved out, the complex’s occupancy dropped from 100% to 62%, but upon completion of the renovations, it bounced back to 90%. Landmark Office Towers had a nearly four-decade run until its owner, Sherwin-Williams, sold the complex to Detroit-based Bedrock in 2023 ahead of the paint and coatings company’s move to its new 36-story headquarters tower on Public Square. Today, the future of the complex seems tied to Bedrock’s Riverfront Cleveland project, but its precise use is uncertain. Office demand in downtown districts has not recovered from the pandemic collapse of 2020, and conversion of such a massive structure to residential use is costly. But the towers — with their Art Deco flourishes, contribution to a big-city atmosphere, and central location in an evolving downtown — deserve a new, bold vision.","sponsor":null,"accessinfo":"Closed","lede":"Tower City Center, with its Public Square entrance, iconic tower, and flanking hotel and casino, has long overshadowed the office buildings to its rear despite their shared lineage as heirs of the Van Sweringen brothers’ vision. Yet the Landmark Office Towers complex on West Prospect Avenue deserves more attention for its splendid architectural details, novel interior features, and place in the history of some of Cleveland’s most significant corporate giants. ","website":null,"related_resources":["“Corner Stone Laid Quietly.” Cleveland Plain Dealer. November 15, 1929.","“Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock buys Sherwin-Williams’ current HQ.” The Plain Dealer. July 1, 2023.","“Erie President Opens New Offices in Terminal Area.” Cleveland Plain Dealer. August 21, 1931.","“Industry Uses ‘Mike.’” Cleveland Plain Dealer. December 31, 1933.","Koshar, John Leo. “Complex Due a Lift.” The Plain Dealer. October 27, 1985.","Koshar, John Leo. “Sherwin-Williams Buys Complex in Landmark Move for Downtown.” The Plain Dealer. November 2, 1985.","“Lease Buildings in Terminal Area.” Cleveland Plain Dealer. December 19, 1950.","“Republic Rents in Terminal Group.” Cleveland Plain Dealer. October 11, 1935.","“Terminal to Get Standard of Ohio.” Cleveland Plain Dealer. February 23, 1930.","Van Vliet, W. James. “Restoring an Urban Treasure.” The Plain Dealer. October 5, 1986."],"factoids":["Landmark Office Towers is not one but three buildings, but when paired, the complex ranked second in leasable office space from its 1931 completion until 1986, topped only by the Union Trust Building at Euclid and East 9th.","Cleveland Railway Co., which moved its offices from the Hanna Building to the Midland Building, installed what was said to be the first-ever interdepartmental broadcast system in 1933, enabling the instant delivery of announcements to 1,048 employees at fifteen outlying shops, barns, and branch offices."],"files":{"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/cf17bb9783a0e01e8bcbc10cdc20b577.jpg":{"id":13058,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Original Rendering of Builders Exchange Building","description":"Chicago-based architects Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, the same firm commissioned by the Van Sweringens for the rest of the Union Terminal Group project, designed the three conjoined buildings that later became Landmark Office Towers. This rendering depicts the Builders Exchange from its West Huron Road side overlooking the Cuyahoga River. The eight-story-tall setbacks reduced bulk and provided ventilation and light. | Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections at Cleveland State University | 1928 | Graham, Anderson, Probst & White","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/cf17bb9783a0e01e8bcbc10cdc20b577.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/2a671b6862410d245b10b2050d3daa2d.jpg":{"id":13059,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Steel Superstructure, Looking South","description":"This aerial view shows the concurrent construction of the Medical Arts Building along West Prospect Avenue in the foreground with the Builders Exchange Building rising behind it on the river side of the building site. All streets between the Union Terminal and the river were viaducts running above the Terminal's many railroad tracks, whose presence meant that the complex had no basement. | Cleveland Memory, Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections at Cleveland State University | December 20, 1928","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/2a671b6862410d245b10b2050d3daa2d.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/38e120ccb5eb9e0f230d459177b59aea.jpg":{"id":13060,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Builders Exchange Building Skeleton","description":"This view of the completed steel superstructure faces east from the river. The Bailey's department store building appears beyond at left. The Higbee's department store building would soon block this view of Bailey's. | Cleveland Memory, Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections at Cleveland State University | April 18, 1929","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/38e120ccb5eb9e0f230d459177b59aea.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/c19455bb767593d99db9197631065e95.jpg":{"id":13061,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Construction, Facing Northwest","description":"The completed Terminal Tower looms over the rapidly progressing construction of the Builders Exchange (left) and Medical Arts Building (right). | Cleveland Public Library, Photograph Collection | ca. June 1929","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/c19455bb767593d99db9197631065e95.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/55f2bd4f72ea40eb922fc63842b80b30.jpg":{"id":13062,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Medical Arts Building","description":"The completed Medical Arts Building along West Prospect before the Midland Bank Building was built to the right. | Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections at Cleveland State University | ca. 1930","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/55f2bd4f72ea40eb922fc63842b80b30.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/e9acbc15b4ac40436676b7f121444c54.jpg":{"id":13063,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Tree Trunk Bound for Cleveland","description":"A giant oak tree trunk is loaded onto a steamship in the Liverpool harbor in this 1929 photo. It was one of seven oaks selected from an estate in England to be used in pillars and paneling in the Midland Bank Building's lobby. At the time of construction, the lobby was described as a unique departure from the longstanding practice of classical marble columns in banking lobbies. | Plain Dealer Archives / Cleveland Public Library | July 28, 1929","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/e9acbc15b4ac40436676b7f121444c54.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/b9f028bd18feaa1207cdc27eeb69cf1f.jpg":{"id":13064,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Midland Bank Building, West Facade","description":"The Midland Building, whose main entrance faces West Prospect Avenue (left), also runs the entire length of West 2nd Street, over which it includes two 8-story setbacks. | Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections at Cleveland State University","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/b9f028bd18feaa1207cdc27eeb69cf1f.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/f34f00048b66d8d31ba9685ae6ca1ee9.jpg":{"id":13065,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Bird's-Eye View of Roofs","description":"This aerial view, likely taken from the observation deck of the 52-story Terminal Tower, shows the fusion of the three buildings, which appear as one. They include the Medical Arts Building (left), Midland Bank Building (right), and Builders Exchange Building (top). All are 18 stories with two additional mechanical floors in the center where they abut. The equivalent of two levels below the grade of the entrance-level viaducts accounts for why the buildings are sometimes said to be 22 stories tall. The white-outlined section of upper floors was drawn to call attention to some aspect of the Medical Arts Building in a Cleveland Press article. If you look carefully at the top center portion of the roof, you can see a long, narrow light well, which spans the 18-story height, introducing light and ventilation just as outer setbacks do. | Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections at Cleveland State University | ca. 1930s","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/f34f00048b66d8d31ba9685ae6ca1ee9.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/67b11e3ec4c4c784aa8edc8a5baded21.jpg":{"id":13071,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Skybridge","description":"This ornate skybridge was a proposed additional linkage between the Medical Arts Building and Higbee Building, but it was never built. However, today a much newer, more utilitarian skybridge enters the Higbee Building (now Jack Casino) from a parking garage diagonally across from it on the southeast corner of Prospect and Ontario. | Plain Dealer Archives / Cleveland Public Library | June 29, 1930","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/67b11e3ec4c4c784aa8edc8a5baded21.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/145c54625d4d70c6d303e33c5eba7d11.jpg":{"id":13068,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Midland Bank Grand Opening Advertisement","description":"Some later articles claim that in the depths of the Great Depression, Midland Bank closed before it could occupy its new quarters in the Midland Building, but this is not true. This ad calls attention the grand opening in the summer of 1930, and numerous additional articles and ads make clear that the bank was there until it closed and merged with Cleveland Trust in 1932. | Plain Dealer Archives / Cleveland Public Library | July 7, 1930","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/145c54625d4d70c6d303e33c5eba7d11.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/06ff05e59a067010aea98388027b87bf.jpg":{"id":13066,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Guildhall Advertisement","description":"Guildhall, a restaurant on the tenth floor of the Builders Exchange Building, took its name from a 15th-century municipal building in London that held sumptuous banquets, sometimes for English royals. Guildhall could be entered through passageways cut through from the other two adjoining buildings, making it a busy hive of activity at meal times during the work week. Guildhall operated from 1930 until at least 1941. By the early postwar years (if not before), it was being used as the Sohio employees' cafeteria, which it remained until Sohio removed its headquarters in 1986 to what is now called 200 Public Square. | Plain Dealer Archives / Cleveland Public Library | April 9, 1930","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/06ff05e59a067010aea98388027b87bf.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/6692702914a47a5df1f9d7282922b451.jpg":{"id":13067,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Home in the Sky","description":"The Home in the Sky was a full-size demonstration built inside the two top floors of the Builders Exchange Building. It functioned as a year-round exhibit of homebuilding and home furnishing ideas and featured many local and national materials that the construction industry hoped to sell. The exhibit lasted about a decade until the restrictions of World War II effectively shut down home construction. This ad shows the Home in the Sky as though it were in the clouds above the Terminal Tower and is similar to an early illustration in a Van Sweringen Company promotion of Shaker Heights. | Plain Dealer Archives / Cleveland Public Library | April 4, 1930","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/6692702914a47a5df1f9d7282922b451.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/61af93ca0175486da987f77ba44e306e.jpg":{"id":13069,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Central National Bank in the Midland Building","description":"From 1949 to 1970, Central National Bank was based in the former offices of the Midland Bank. In the latter year, it opened its own office building in the Erieview renewal area on East 9th and Superior, and Sohio took over the space. It was at that point that Sohio covered the beautiful lobby with dropped ceilings and other modern materials, causing damage that was later undone in the 1980s restoration of the lobby. | Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections at Cleveland State University | April 1, 1949 | Clayton Knipper","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/61af93ca0175486da987f77ba44e306e.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/94a98afa28b022dc09376e01d593eea3.jpg":{"id":13070,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Escalator in Bank Lobby","description":"When Central National Bank made the Midland Building its main office in 1949, it installed this escalator alongside the stairs off the lobby. Note the ornate ceiling and wooden pillars, which were original features. | Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections at Cleveland State University | April 1, 1949 | Clayton Knipper","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/94a98afa28b022dc09376e01d593eea3.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/af3c22f6899c5f90d6fc72d0fd213ba2.jpg":{"id":13078,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Van Sweringen Arcade","description":"In 1985-86, RESS Realty renovated the three office buildings and unified them for marketing purposes as Landmark Office Towers with the idea of offsetting the sudden loss of Standard Oil Co. of Ohio (Sohio), which moved most of its operations to its new headquarters tower at 200 Public Square. The buildings' owners also restored the old Midland Bank lobby, which Sohio had encased in modern materials in 1970 when it took the space vacated by Central National Bank. RESS Realty's leaders realized that the Union Terminal Group developers, the Van Sweringens, had no place in the city commemorating their influence. Therefore, they named the space the Van Sweringen Arcade, a name that evokes other "interior streets" in Downtown Cleveland. | Flickr | March 3, 2011 | © Timothy Kilkenny","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/af3c22f6899c5f90d6fc72d0fd213ba2.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/1e05e63dc226ac2949bdbae8f024a961.jpg":{"id":13077,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Landmark Office Towers Advertisement","description":"This ad plays off Cleveland's then-recent selection as the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It refers to the Landmark Office Towers as a "hit" location, noting that the complex "hit the top of the charts with businesses on the move" and urging readers to "feel the beat of tomorrow's business, today." It points to the fact that 325,000 square feet of office space abandoned by Sohio had been absorbed through relocations into the towers. It also mentions the newly opened Haymarket restaurant. | Plain Dealer Archives / Cleveland Public Library | June 26, 1987","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/1e05e63dc226ac2949bdbae8f024a961.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/9e4aa8e951ed5a914880e41414a92ee2.jpg":{"id":13072,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Art Deco Details on Medical Arts Building","description":"Among the Art Deco details above the entrance to the Medical Arts Building on Prospect are two figures, each holding a caduceus, a staff with two serpents coiled around it. In mythology, the staff belonged to Hermes (Greek) or Mercury (Roman), patrons of commerce. In the early 20th century, the U.S. Army Medical Corps adopted the symbol, even though traditionally the symbol for medicine was the rod of Asclepius, a single serpent coiled around a staff with no wings. Interestingly, the original purpose of the building as a hub of medical care gave way to business uses, including the headquarters of Republic Steel, thus making the caduceus symbols more accurate. | May 4, 2025 | J. Mark Souther","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/9e4aa8e951ed5a914880e41414a92ee2.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/b93e2f902efee69c38ff04472e493521.jpg":{"id":13073,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Entry Court at Medical Arts Building","description":"This court, now made inaccessible from the sidewalk by a fence, was originally intended to create a welcoming entrance to the lobby of the Medical Arts Building from its Ontario Street side. | May 4, 2025 | J. Mark Souther","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/b93e2f902efee69c38ff04472e493521.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/53d37552a1fe130348291b0df7a30ed2.jpg":{"id":13074,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Art Deco Details Above Midland Building Entrance","description":"Art Deco details, including a wheel with radiating lightning bolts, are rendered in gray limestone on the first four stories surrounding the main entrance to the Midland Bank Building. | May 4, 2025 | J. Mark Souther","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/53d37552a1fe130348291b0df7a30ed2.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/a8d59ca129820f27ed7b53a603318626.jpg":{"id":13075,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Art Deco Details Along W. 2nd St.","description":"The Midland Building's West 2nd Street facade continues the Art Deco detailing found on its front elevation. | May 4, 2025 | J. Mark Souther ","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/a8d59ca129820f27ed7b53a603318626.jpg"},"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/fullsize/22c90fcaaa17d2cf662c77cd4833a15d.jpg":{"id":13076,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"West 2nd Street, Looking North","description":"In this street view, the Midland Building rises to the right and the 12-story Skylight Office Tower to the left. The former Higbee's department store building lies across West Prospect at center, enclosing the vista and adding to the appearance that one is in the heart of the city. This is at once true and false, for if one turns around, one sees an open vista of the river and Ohio City beyond. Skylight Office Tower was built in 1991 in conjunction with another new building to its west (now home to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel), both them flanking the Avenue at Tower City Center, developed as a downtown shopping mall. Until 2016, Skylight Tower was home to one of only two Hard Rock Cafe restaurants in Ohio. | May 4, 2025 | J. Mark Souther","thumbnail":"https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/square_thumbnails/22c90fcaaa17d2cf662c77cd4833a15d.jpg"}}}